Business Security Information

In recent articles, I have spoken about PCI compliance and about security tools that can help you identify sensitive information on your computers .  While talking about PCI with a company recently and as I write these articles, I realized that there is enormous amounts of open-source software that can assist businesses in complying with some of the elements of PCI.  I have included a list of possible open source software that you might find useful when working on the different elements of PCI.  I use open-source software for a variety of elements in my business and personal life and find it comparable or superior in many ways.  Of course, there is usually a learning curve when working with any new software whether open-source or purchased.

Some of the listed open-source software will run only on specific operating systems (such as Linux or Windows) while certain ones can run on multiple operating systems.  The following list is not all- inclusive but includes some of the most popular of the open-source software and is a good starting point for you and your business.

Intrusion Detection Systems

• Snort
• OSSEC

Wireless Testing

• Aircrack-NG
• Netstumbler
• Kismet

Firewall

• Iptables/Netfilter Please note there is also one similar to this that runs on BDS operating system and is called IPFW.
• Smoothwall
• Pfsense
• M0n0wall
• Endian Firewall
• Modsecurity This is set up as a web application firewall which is one of the requirements of PCI if you don’t test the code of your web applications.  I will discuss web application firewalls in a later post.
• Firestarter

Encryption

• Stunnel
• Openssh
• Truecrypt
• GNUPG

Other Security Software

• Nmap/Zenmap
• OpenVPN
• Open Tripwire Note that this link takes you to a site that has a link to the free Open Tripwire project as well as the paid version of tripwire.  There is a comparison chart and other related info on this site you might find useful.

Live Security CD’s

• Backtrack
• STD

I have used both of the live CD’s, but there are many more out there, so you don’t have to stop with just these two.  Also, all the software on the live CD’s can usually be downloaded individually and used separately.

Try a few of these out and see if they can assist you with your PCI compliance.  As always, test the software before using it on your network.  Make sure you understand how the software works before throwing all it’s capabilities against or onto your network.  Let me know what works, what doesn’t and why.  I would love to hear about your real world experiences.

Related posts:

1. Unified Threat Management–Do I Need It?
2. Help Me With PCI Compliance!
3. Understanding Web Application Firewalls – Part Two!